About a week ago, I tried my hand at a Do-It-Yourself Post-It Note Goal List. It's a really simple idea, easy to do and easy to personalize. After I made it, I decided to test it out for a week before I actually blogged about it. It looks nice, and it keeps things neat and organized, so that your list looks like this :
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| My finished project. |
and not like this:
For starters, you'll need an 11x14 inch sheet of thick drawing paper or cardstock, a pencil, some markers, a ruler, a few Sharpies, and of course, a nice block of Post-Its.
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| Supplies. |
You'll probably find yourself needing other items as you start working on this, but you can decide that for yourself. These are the basic supplies you'll want to have handy.
Sketch out the design you want to use with just a pencil first. I'll demonstrate how I set mine up, but you might want to do yours entirely differently. I started with a 1/2 inch border, then made one large box at the top for my header (4.5 x 10 inches). Inside the header, about a half of an inch from the edge of the header, I made one, 3-inch box.
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| My outline. |
On the rest of the page, I made six more three inch boxes. These will be where the Post-It notes go, so if you want to use slightly larger or smaller post-its, make sure to adjust your sizes accordingly. I have a thing with everything on a page being evenly spaced, so I spent more time than necessary making sure the boxes were just perfectly spaced. I finally ended up leaving about a quarter of an inch between each box, and about 1 inch between the rows.
After you're satisfied with how your sketch looks, trace over the lines with Sharpie, or some other sort of marker to make sure it stands out.
The next part was my favorite. I got out my colored pencils and markers and decorated the header and in between the boxes. You can doodle and decorate however you like, just make it so that YOU enjoy looking at it. If you like the way it came out, you'll be more inclined to use it.
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| My finished page. |
Next, we can finally break out the Post-Its. First, you must decide on a time frame for your goals, or to-dos, or whatever you have decided is the subject of your list. I decided on weekly goals, but daily or monthly could work just as well.
In the box at the top of the page, get a Post-It and write in your timeframe. Mine is in the picture below.
Don't forget, whichever time frame you choose doesn't need to be permenant. If you decide later you'd rather a shorter or longer timeframe, just replace the Post-It Note with a new one.
Now make six goals, writing each one on its own Post-It. Stick those Post-In Notes in the little boxes you drew. Hang it up somewhere you'll see it often, and when you've completed one of the tasks/goals, take off the Post-It and dump it.
Like I said, I used it throughout this past week, and today I am finishing the final goal, which was writing two blog posts during the week. The list was easy for me to use, since it was just hanging there in front of me every day, rather than being in a notebook which can be closed and stuffed away in a drawer. Not to mention the satisfaction of pulling off a Post-It note with the completion of each task.
**Credit for this idea goes to this blog.
**Credit for this idea goes to this blog.
